Taking responsibility

By now you've probably heard that Hillary Clinton has published a book that explains why she lost the recent presidential campaign. In the book she evidently blames just about everyone for her loss: Bernie Sanders, Matt Lauer,  James Comey, the Russians, WikiLeaks, President Obama and VP Biden and even female voters. For some reason she seems unable to take any responsibility for her loss herself.

Since the election I've been amused at how the Democrats have been in a panic over the results. Even before the new President was sworn into office there were talks about impeachment. After all, they had rigged the primary so no one but Clinton could get the nomination, and when Trump became the Republican nominee I'm sure they thought they had the election won. Trump wasn't a politician. He said some really stupid things at times and was certainly not politically correct in most things he did. He had very low trust rating. The problem was, so did Clinton.

After the election I believed that if Democrats had ran anyone other than Clinton they would have probably won the election. People did not trust Clinton. There were too many unanswered questions about Clinton's handing of Benghazi and the blatant lie she told about what incited the attack. There were other questions about her truthfulness such as the time she claimed she landed in Bosnia under sniper fire when video clearly showed just the opposite was true. Many people rightfully questioned the vast wealth the Clintons amassed after leaving the White House, and of course there were the missing emails, some of which contained classified information. The Democratic party had many people who would have been a more viable candidate. People may not have liked Trump, but they had even more concerns about Clinton.

One of Clinton's problems is illustrated once again in this book. She simply cannot accept responsibility. Even when she says she is responsible that statement is always followed by a "But...," at which time she shifts the blame to someone else.

What does all this have to do with persons in ministry? None of us enjoys admitting when we've made a mistake. Taking responsibility for our mistakes isn't easy or fun, but it is the adult thing to do. Trying to shift the blame to someone else just compounds the problem. And, when we try to avoid responsibility we really aren't fooling anyone.

A key element of leadership is admitting when we're wrong, and we will be wrong many times. That's the nature of leadership. If you never make mistakes you're not leading, you're managing. Leading dares to venture into new territory, and not every venture works out the way we want.

Zig Ziglar used to say "Failure is an event, not a person." Failing at some task does not make a person a failure. It simply means the individual did not succeed at that particular effort. The wise thing to do is to admit the failure and begin to look for a better way that will succeed.

People know when we've messed up. The good news is that many of those people are willing to forgive when they see us take responsibility for our mistakes. Few people expect us to be perfect, so they are often willing to forgive us if we are willing to admit those mistakes and take ownership of them. Admitting responsibility for our mistakes will actually cause people to trust us even more which is essential to a successful ministry.